Karnataka Heritage Trip – Oct 31st and Nov 1st

OK, now for the last day of the fun part. I already mentioned that we reached Koodalasangama for the night stay in the last post. But what I forgot to mention was that we got lost on the way actually -from BAdami to Koodalasangama. These are times I feel really bad that our authorities dont do enough to promote tourism. The diversion to Koodalasangama is a narrow road and there are not even any signs – let alone at night in the dark, one cannot make out the way even in daytime.

Continuing, on day 3, we got ready and had breakfast at the only good restaurant there – Kamat Yatri Nivas. And then as planned we went to the Shiva temple and the Basaveshawara Aikya MAntapa – the place where BasavaNNa apparently attained NirvaNa. This place is amazing and very well maintained. The actual Aikya place is very simple and under water. So, they have built a bridge and imagine a huge pillar inside which there are stairs to go down to the actual aiKya mantapa. What I liked most was the fact that there was no crowd, no selling un-necessary stuff and very clean. Once we came up, we decided to go boating in the river.2 rivers confluence – Krishna and Ghataprabha. The boat ride was unfortunately not satisfactory since it was very short. We then played in the water for sometime and then started to Bijapur.

Bijapur was HOT! and it was afternoon by the time we reached the hotel. It took real effort to walk out of that cool room for lunch and site seeing at 1.30 in the afternoon 🙂 Still, we did it! We had a jowar roti lunch – speciality there and then saw Barah Kamaan (no one knows why this was built), Ibrahim Roza complex and then the Gol Gumbaz which was the highlight. Its a superbly architectured place where even a rustle of a paper,hanky can be heard across the interiors of the building! Oh! Why am I even trying to explain that.You have to read more here:

And yeah, I have to mention that as we climb thr 7 floors of the structure – the stairs get narrower and steeper and by the 7th floor I had to hold onto my knees and climb! Some serious excercising is required now I think 😦

It was already dark by the time we got out of the Gol Gumbaz and then we had heard about a huge Shiva temple which was newly built – so we went there. By then Chutku was tired and so was I, so while my Co-sis took pictures Hubby and I had a huge arguement about feeding the little fellow and putting him to sleep :-(. To add to that, there was a traffic jam too on the way back and it added to the exhaustion. We ate dinner at the restaurant and hit the bed early.

Day 4: Was just travel back. We wanted to see the Alamatti dam but unfortunately there were very strict restrictions and so we couldnt even see the water on the dam – we just drove in and drove out of that place. We finally did go to the Kamat restaurant that we had seen on the way (on the first day) had coffee there and as soon as we crossed Chitradurga we saw clouds and by the time we came to Tumkur road/Nelamangala it had begun to pour. After all that heat of past 2 days it was wonderful to drive through rain and cool winds and feel ‘at-home’ 🙂

Finally, some pictures of the last day of touring – Koodalasangama and Bijapur.

Basavanna Aikya Mantapa from top – this whole structure is inside a huge pillar